


A Pebble In The King's Pocket

by icarus_chained



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV)
Genre: Dreams, Fealty, Freedom, Happy Ending, Kings & Queens, Kissing, Love, Loyalty, M/M, Magic, Oaths & Vows, Reward, Sacrifice, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4814822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Uskglass comes to Childermass while he sleeps, to offer him a reward for all his service. It is not a reward Childermass can accept, however. His choice was made years ago, and he will not undo it now. Perhaps, though, in sacrificing one reward, he may yet win a greater.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pebble In The King's Pocket

**Author's Note:**

> "And when we are sure of something we say it is as safe as a pebble in John Uskglass' pocket."  
> \--- John Childermass, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

John Childermass opened his eyes. He lay on a bed of heather, though he had not gone to sleep in one, and the world around him was full of voices. It shook with a great, hollow clamouring, a thousand voices speaking a thousand tongues, in which only a word or two caught his ear with any sense. It was an endless wash of sound, almost too great for him to bear, and he found his hands knotted in stems of heather as though they might anchor him in the sea of it. For a moment, lost and bewildered, he could do naught.

Then something happened. Something arrived and struck the sky like a great bell, calling forth a sound that was not a sound. A vast toll of silence rolled out and stilled every voice in its path. The world shook once more and was silent, and in the midst of it lay John Childermass. He sat up, slowly and cautiously, and looked about himself.

It was not the ravine. He had half expected that it might be, this sensation now somewhat familiar to him. It was a moor, instead, a wild expanse of earth and heather and sky, in which great rocks were dotted like the thrown game pieces of careless giants. His bed of heather lay nestled in a little hollow, and above it rose one of those stones, on which there sat a figure. A man, dark of hair and wild of countenance, who looked down at him with a thoughtful little smile. A memory stirred at the sight of him, one that had been hidden from Childermass until then, and recognition followed in its wake. The silence belonged to this man, of course. The world had fallen still at his request. He was the Raven King. How could it not?

Childermass climbed to his feet, his heart hammering in his chest, a great emptiness in his head. He did not speak. He remembered the last time, how he had answered his king then. He did not dare to speak again. John Uskglass looked down at him where he stood mute and nearly horrified, and his smile crooked a little bit. The Raven King came to his feet, smooth and fluid, and hopped like a bird down from his rock. He left his stone behind him and came to stand in the heather only a little way off.

Childermass stared at him, frozen where he stood. He meant to kneel. He meant to offer respect, apology, some recompense for what he had done and failed to do the last time. Yet, somehow, he found he could not move. It was not a spell, not the thing which had frozen him in place at the ravine. There was no other will upon him. He simply could not force himself to act. 

"... My king," he whispered at last, through numb lips. He made to move, slowly and achingly, made to drop finally to one knee, but his king forestalled him. The Raven King held out a hand in calm negation, and then turned it, palm up, to gesture him back to his feet. Childermass, bewildered, obeyed. That much he could do, if apology was beyond him. If it was his king's wish that he stand, the least he could do was obey.

"Well met, John Childermass," the Raven King said softly, after a moment. He was smiling faintly, a strange little curl of his lip as he looked at Childermass. He moved closer, until they were standing almost chest to chest, and studied him with curious eyes. 

Childermass met them, if only by force of habit, some lingering instinct towards insolence moving him even now. He felt a pressure in his chest as he stood beneath his king's gaze, a weight of emotion that he could not name. Though it was a remnant of defiance that had raised his eyes, it was only desperation that filled them, and a wealth of that nameless thing. John Uskglass studied it. The Raven King watched it while it filled him near to breaking, and seemed to find it not displeasing.

He stood back, after a moment of this. The Raven King. He took a small step back, ignoring Childermass as he leaned somewhat helplessly after him, and then he held out his hand, closed into a fist. He did not speak as he did this. He did not explain himself at all. He only waited until his hand had drawn Childermass' bewildered gaze, and then he turned it over, uncurled it so that Childermass could see the object that lay nestled in his palm.

It looked like a pebble, at first. A little round stone, cupped nonsensically in a king's palm. It was only when Childermass leaned closer, moved to curiosity in spite of himself, that he realised it was not. It was iron, not stone. A small, grey ball of iron, gleaming dully in the hand that held it, a little scratched in places and darkly stained. Blood. Old blood, long since dried. The stone was a pistol ball, already fired, and stained with someone's blood.

Childermass stared at it. His breath left him, a hollowness of recognition reaching up to fill him in its place, and his hand reached unbidden towards his own shoulder. He knew the thing, of course. He knew it very well, though he had more felt than seen it at the time. To see it now, in his king's hand ... Oh. Oh, but he remembered, suddenly. He remembered a dream, while the pain had ravaged him. He remembered a flight of wings against his shoulder, and the dark shape of a raven carrying that pain away, at least for a little while. He remembered ...

He looked up. He looked to his king once again, away from the grisly little thing in his palm, his eyes wide and his mouth open. No sound came out. It did not have to. His king looked into his eyes, and knew at once that he had understood. What had happened then. What it was that he held in his hand. How it had come to be there. What it meant.

It was neither stone nor pistol ball that lay cupped in his king's palm. It was his life, bound up in the thing that had almost taken it. It was his life, and it was not his own. It belonged to he who held it, and had done since that day in Hanover Square, when a woman cursed by faerie magic had shot him. Then and now, his king held his life in his hand.

"Would you have it back?" John Uskglass asked him quietly. Childermass blinked at him, mute and unmoored, and the king moved carefully closer, his dark eyes almost gentle. "I came to offer it to you. You have done well, John Childermass. You have served me as best you were able, whether you always knew it or not. Would you have your life returned to you? All bonds upon you would be broken, all claims renounced. You would be a servant no longer, neither mine nor anyone's. You would have freedom, such that none may take from you again. It is in my power. Only ask it now, and you need never bow before anyone again."

Childermass stared at him. He trembled, suddenly. He could not breathe. The world around them was made of magic, spun to stillness and silence by his king's will, and he could feel the truth of what had been said. Life and freedom lay in that hand, offered to him freely and with all the power of the Raven King. He could reach out now and take them, and no-one would ever lay claim to him again. His king had said it, and so it must be so. He would be free.

And he would, perhaps, never see his king again. All claims renounced. He would serve no-one, and belong to no-one. He would be a man without a king.

The thought rang through him like a bell, like a sky struck silent, and all other thoughts fell still around it. He looked at his king, who watched him in turn with placid, curious eyes. He looked at the hand, at the tiny thing that lay inside it, marred with blood and old pain, all the marks of service. He looked at his life and his freedom, held out to him in offer. In his head, there was no thought at all. He reached out. He lifted his hand, and reached it towards his king's ...

... and curled those fingers closed around the stone once more.

"It was ever yours," he said quietly, while his king looked at him. "Before ever I was shot, it belonged to you. I gave it freely. Keep it, if you want it. Throw it away if you do not. I will not take it. My life is yours, my king. While the choice is mine, I will never take it from you."

It was a poor enough offering, perhaps. His service had been dismissed before now, cast aside at the last, and his life near enough also. His king could do the same now. The land around them was littered with tossed stones, it would be no hardship to throw this one after them. That was the king's choice, however. Childermass had already made his, had made it a very long time ago, and he did not regret it now. He was, and had always been, a king's man. If the choice was his, he would remain so.

For a moment, his king did nothing. John Uskglass only looked at him, something fierce and dark and entirely without name in his eyes, and then ... 

Then he reached up, with the hand that did not cradle a life within its palm. He brushed his hand gently at Childermass' cheek, through his hair, and brought it back to cup it at the nape of his neck. He drew him close by it, stepped into him and held him prisoned, and reached up to press his lips with burning intensity to Childermass' brow. Childermass cried out softly at the sensation, closed his eyes and leaned into his king's embrace, and John Uskglass kissed his eyelids as well. Kissed his cheeks, lingering for a moment over the one that bore a scar, and then finally kissed his mouth. Softly. Almost chastely. This was not a plundering. It was a thanks, nearly a benediction, and Childermass fell dazedly into it. He opened his mouth, and gladly let his king take from him what he would. There was a silence within him, in that moment. There was a peace like none he had felt in his life.

"... I will keep it, then," his king said, when he had drawn back from the kiss. Childermass did not understand him at first, too blindly dazed by sensation, but gradually he forced his eyes to open, and his mind to take the meaning. The Raven King smiled at him, when he managed it. He held him close, and held up his closed hand between them in gentle reminder. "Your life, John Childermass. I will keep it, since it is your wish. I will put it in my pocket, like all precious things, and I will keep it safe. Is that all right with you?"

It was a laughing question. It was said with half-mischief, for a dazed man and a choice made decades ago. Childermass took it seriously nonetheless. He took his king's hand in his own, the little round shape of his life held within it, and brought it to his lips so that he might press a kiss to the back of it, a vassal to his liege. John Uskglass stared at him, a black and drowning thing in his eyes, and Childermass gave him the smallest smile of his own.

"I would wish for nothing better," he said quietly, with a lifetime of honesty behind it. "In all my life, my king, I have longed for nothing more. I thank you for it."

The Raven King did not answer, for a moment. There was magic in the air around him, and centuries of history in his shadow. There was grief in his expression, suddenly, and an ancient ferocity that spoke of conquest and kingship and sacrifice, and perhaps of prophecy, of a future laden with as many pains and sufferings as the past. His hand was tight around the nape of Childermass' neck, and the other clutched fast around the pistol ball stained with his blood.

"You may not, before long," John Uskglass warned him softly. "You may come to wish that you had taken freedom while it was offered, John Childermass. I will not waste your loyalty, though, nor your love either, while you bear it for me. Walk tall, when you wake once more in England. Go among them with pride, for you do so as my emissary. I will place in you my power, and take from you your life. That will be the bargain between us, if you agree to it."

Childermass paused. Not in doubt. He had understood when first he pledged his life, had known the moment he recognised the little stone for what it was. He had faced death out of loyalty before, and despite all that had happened later he did not regret doing so. That had been for Norrell. For his king ... No. It was not doubt that caused his hesitation, nor anything remotely like it. It was a question, instead, and one that he had no right to ask. It was a question, because his king had named his loyalty for the love it was, and because his king had kissed him, and because despite its impertinence he could not help but ask.

"... And what of your love?" he asked, very quietly. "I know I have no right to it, and neither do I expect it. I cannot help but want it, though. I wonder, my king. If you allow it... might I have a chance to earn your love as well?"

John Uskglass blinked at him, for the smallest of seconds, and then he smiled. He stepped back, his face wreathed with the slyest and most secretive of grins, and slipped the stone that was Childermass' life safely back into his pocket, where none in any realm might steal it from him. He patted it, a cheerful, possessive sort of gesture, and reached out his now-empty hand to lay it gently against Childermass' chest.

"And here I thought you were a clever man," he said in amusement. "You have no need of chances, John Childermass. Do you think I greet all of my servants with such a kiss? You have had my liking for years, and my love from the moment you offered me your life. "

And then, while Childermass could only stare at him, a hollow silence in his head and a great, vast joy in his chest, the Raven King pushed against him lightly, a hand across his heart, and toppled him laughingly back to England and the waking world once more.

John Childermass opened his eyes. He lay in a musty pile of sheets in the bed of an inn, and the world around him was full of noise. Bird songs and snores and the clatterings of waking streets, all the sounds of England and of York, as eternally harsh against his ears as ever. There was no great silence to wash them out, no king's magic to spare his ears. He did not need any. He held a silence inside him still. His cheeks were wet with tears, and his heart was light with joy. When he got up, when he left his bed and walked out into the world, he held his head high and with pride, for he was the servant of the Raven King. 

He had sacrificed his freedom, and for it he had gained his king's love. In all his years, he had hoped for no better reward for loyalty, nor received one either. He had no regrets for it now. His life was a pebble in the king's pocket, and his love was a treasure in his chest. 

Now and forever more, as he always had been, he was the king's man.

**Author's Note:**

> This mostly uses TV canon, especially for the vision scene when Childermass was shot. I have the book on order from the library, but it'll be another week before it gets in. I saw [this photoset and book quote](http://cheesybadgers.tumblr.com/post/127591812396/if-i-were-you-mr-lascelles-said-childermass), though, and the bit about the pebble bumped into the pistol ball in my head, and ... Um. Here we are?


End file.
